Last poppies placed in newly named Arras Tunnel

Prime
Minister John Key, Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee and
Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Christopher Finlayson
today laid the last of 273 symbolic decorative poppies on
the wall of the newly named Arras Tunnel, which runs
underneath the National War Memorial Park site.

The
poppy tiles symbolise the 2721 New Zealand fatalities in the
Anzac campaign.

Mr Finlayson announced the tunnel
will be named Arras Tunnel after the French town where the
New Zealand Tunnelling Company dug huge networks of
underground tunnels during the First World War.

Before the final poppies were secured, the signatures of
the Prime Minister and Ministers were added to those of the
tunnel construction workers and two students representing
neighbouring Mount Cook School on the back of the
poppies.

“I have visited Arras where reminders of
the New Zealand presence and contribution are still in
evidence today, not solely through the memorial to the
Company’s fallen soldiers erected by the town, but also by
the graffiti they left in the tunnels during construction,
including messages in Cook Islands Māori,” Mr Finlayson
says.

“The naming of Arras Tunnel is a fitting
acknowledgement of this connection.”

In November
1916, the New Zealand Tunnelling Company was assigned to
Arras, where they extended the existing tunnel systems and
created new tunnels capable of housing nearly 20,000
men.

In April 1917, leading up to the Battle of
Arras, they tunnelled towards the German lines and laid
three mines directly under their trenches, ready to detonate
at the beginning of the Allied assault on the German lines
on 9 April 1917. This, combined with the Allied attack, saw
the German lines pushed back 11 kilometres.

After
the Battle of Arras, the Company was assigned a number of
tasks around Arras, such as bridge building. The tunnel
system they created played an important role towards the end
of the War. When the Company left France in July 1918, they
had sustained 41 deaths and 151 injuries.

The
tunnels were closed after the Second World War and were
rediscovered in 1990. A memorial to the 41 of the Company
who had died was unveiled in Arras in April 2007, 90 years
after the Battle of Arras.

In February 2008,
Carrière Wellington, a museum which incorporates part of
the Company’s tunnel system, was opened in Arras.

The field of poppy tiles placed in the Arras Tunnel have
been placed to remind tunnel users they are passing through
a memorial space. The tunnel contains the stretch of State
Highway One through Buckle Street which previously ran
alongside the National War Memorial. The poppies, which were
designed and manufactured in Wellington, are scattered
sparsely along the walls at each end and are more densely
clustered where the tunnel passes underneath the park.

The simple design and placement of the poppies has been
through a New Zealand Transport Agency safety approval
process to ensure they are not overly distracting to
drivers.

There will be a public walk-through of the
tunnel on Saturday 27 September before it officially opens
on Monday 29 September.

The National War Memorial
Park will be open in time for Anzac Day
2015.

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